Hi there,
This was my first time being a game master and I have never played Vaesen as a player. So i had a hard time sometimes. I found it very helpful to read about other peoples experiences, so i will write mine down:
I combined this adventure with an introduction story. Therefore I only let the players read chapter 2, 3, 4, and 5 from the book before we started with the campaign because I wanted to roleplay some stuff out with them (I have 3 players who are all very much into roleplaying everything out :p ).
I started this game with the players falling asleep in their own places, not knowing from each others existence yet.They had a dream in which Linea told them the introduction story on page 6 of the book with a little adjudgments to make it work for her. In this dream she invited them to come look her up in Upsala in the asylum. The players met in Uppsala the town square at a map of the city. I let them tell to each other what they look like and how they traveled here and let them roleplay a bit. They went to the Asylum and were met by the nurse who brought them to Linnea.
Linnea told them about the society and castle Gyllencreutz and gave them the keys to the castle.
They went to see their castle en there i introduced Algot, the butler. He explained who he is and offered them his service. They accepted and he asked were they wanted their chambers to be and how they wanted them decorated. This was a fun way to get to know the characters your players are performing. I also gave them the option to draw out a map of their castle were they could place their rooms and upgrades. Algot also got to work on their newly acquired library. I explained the mechanics of the castle and from this point they could also read chapter 1 and 6 from the book if they wanted.
At this point i could stop the session because this already took about 3 hours, but my players wanted more.
I let a couple of weeks pass. their library and rooms are finished and they wake up in their new castle. Algot gives them the invitation and i let them roleplay a bit. They searched for information in the library and asked Algot some questions. They acquired some items and took the carriage to the inn.
They talked to Olaus and talked to Sami and Sophia. Sami got angry when he heard them talk with Sophia about the play, and Sophia went upstairs to her room. Two of my players went to talk to Sami and tried to learn him a lesson and one went up to Sophia her room and calmed her down. This player was archetype performer, so knew exactly what to say to her! He asked her if she wanted to play for him because he wants to review her performance. He gave her his theatre make-up kit so she could prepare. She agreed to play het show in 10 minutes.
Downstairs the players went tot talk to the guests and got to know most of the clues. Then the guest fell asleep and Sami urged them to go upstairs and he himself went outside. The players went after him and surprisingly convinced him to go inside. They calmed him down and he cared for the sleeping guests. Then the players went upstairs and found Nora's room. One of the players got enthralled (sadly without the vision) and attacked the other players, luckily he rolled bad on his attack, so no damage was taken.
They searched the room and found the notes (did nog take the books in het bookcase). Then Sami came up and saw them in Nora's room. He got possessed and with a good roll on smashing in the door they prevented his suicide! But in preventing him they accidentally knocked him K.O.
At this point they knew this was het work of a revenant. They split the party.. again.. xD one of them went to see the show with the party's dog as emotional support and the other two went searching in the garden for the body that the notes told about.
I could have stopped the session here, because we were now on about 6 hours total, but my players still wanted more xD So lets GOOOOO.
The player upstairs let Sophia do her show and met the ghost of Oscar at the end. He rolled bad on fear, so collapsed in tears with Sophia and asked the dog to get help.
In the meantime the other two found the root cellar and went in. Here they heard the whispers on the wind. The dog barked at the cellar and one of them went up with the dog. So, now i have one player sitting alone in the rootcellar (who had nog seen Oscar yet, so needs a 2 on the fear test with no bonusses because he is alone) and two in the attic with Sophia and the dog.
The player who went upstairs calmed Sophia and the other player down and took them to Sophia her room. At this point the sleepers started 'waking up'. They told Sophia to stay in her room and went to investigate. The sleepwalkers attacked them and started setting the place on fire. The two players did not attack the sleepwalkers, but tried to keep them downstairs (by pulling the stair carpet from under their legs xD )
In the meantime, the player in the rootcellar started searching for signs of a burial place and got the vison of Oscar getting murdered. With a REEEAAALY lucky fear test he was safe and gave a beautiful speech and made clear that they are not the people he was looking for. He calmed down, extinguished the fire and put the walkers to sleep.
The players in the inn took Sophia and went with her to the garden. The player inside the cellar started digging whilst the rotting revenant body of Oscar hung over him. He found the remains of Oscar and took the remains to the church and buried him in the churchyard. They made a beautiful ceremony for him. Sophia said a line from her play:
'' he dances with queens and visits Versaille and the palai royal. There people perform his plays and prays his name, and life dances along like a dream''
and she thanks him for the inspiration in these hard times.
They went back to the inn. 3 guests had severe burning wounds, but nobody died and only the downstairs portion of the inn is burned. They went to Sami and talked firmly to him about his attitude towards his daughter. They gave Sophia their adres in case she ever needed them. They assumed she had the sight so when she turned 18 she could come to the castle if she wanted to know more about the mystical world.
They also talked with Olaus, he asked something like 'did you find the creature that haunted this place?! and dit you banish it for good?' and one of my players immediately shouted: 'he is a Rosenberger!' xD
So this was a total of about 9 hours! I did aske the XP questions 3 times though, to keep it fair.
A couple of things i found hard:
- the spreading of fire (because it is not clear how fire spreads, only how much damage you take if you are on fire, so i gave the fire initiative and spread a quarter of the space per round)
- timeline management when they split the party
- the clues and open end to a overarching story that has not come out yet, like, what was the plan, what did they needed him to do this year, dit it fail? and what will happen now that it had failed or succeeded. (i have not found it in 'the mythic Britain an Ireland' and 'seasons of mysterie'). I think it has something to do with rootcellars because i read this word to often. I hope the players get to visit the places were Hilma, Katja and Albert were last seen. I am hesitant to make up my own story because i am afraid that, when the metaplot is released, it will be so much cooler than what i led my story up to. There are a couple of boards in which they talk about this:
https://forum.frialigan.se/viewtopic.ph ... 33f5bc434d
https://forum.frialigan.se/viewtopic.php?t=7032
I hope some of you find this helpful to read. Feel free to ask any questions and i would love to hear about your stories!
Greets, Nadia